Novell files antitrust suit against Microsoft

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Software firm Novell has filed an antitrust lawsuit against
Microsoft Corp, alleging the latter employed anti-competitive
practices to thwart the WordPerfect software program a decade
ago.

Waltham, Massachusetts-based Novell had said on November 8 that
it planned to sue Microsoft over the program, which it owned from
June 1994 to March 1996 after its merger with WordPerfect Corp.

Novell's lawsuit, filed on Friday, comes four days after
Microsoft agreed to pay Novell $US536 million to settle a dispute over
Novell's NetWare operating system, which is used to run computer
networks and competes against Microsoft's products.

Microsoft, in a statement on Friday, said Novell sought to blame
it for its own "mismanagement and poor business decisions."

It called the lawsuit "unfortunate and surprising" since Novell
owned WordPerfect for a short amount of time.

"There are other fundamental flaws in Novell's complaint,"
Microsoft said in a statement.

"Given that Novell hasn't owned WordPerfect for eight years,
their claims should be barred by the legal doctrine called the
Statute of Limitations."

Novell said its case was based partly on the US government's
antitrust suit, in which Microsoft was found to have eliminated
competition in software markets as part of its unlawful monopoly in
computer operating systems.

Microsoft's Word has become the dominant word processing
program.

WordPerfect and Quattro Pro were sold in 1996 to Corel
Corporation for about $US170 million, but their value had been
estimated at about $US1 billion in 1994, Novell said.